This Wednesday, April 14, Google paid tribute to Johannes Gutenberg, the European inventor of modern printing, by replacing the logo of its homepage with a doodle featuring the printer and his wooden press. The search engine chose this date of April 14 to celebrate the 21st anniversary of the invention of the printing press e anniversary of the retrospective on the inventor organized by the Gutenberg Museum in Mainz, Germany.
At 15 e in the 19th century, Johannes Gutenberg invented movable metal type in Europe, an invention that marked the beginning of modern printing and led to a revolution in intellectual life and the dissemination of knowledge. From its invention around 1455, the printed book spread very quickly in Europe. Typographic workshops were created everywhere in the capitals and large cities.
However, it is not true to say that Gutenberg invented printing worldwide, since the first known book to have been printed with movable metal type is the Jikji a Buddhist treatise printed in 1377, 78 years before the printing of the Gutenberg Bible. According to the latest findings, the Koreans were the first to use movable metal type in 13 e century.
The Gutenberg Bible, the first book printed in Europe with movable type
The famous Gutenberg Bible is the first book printed in Europe with movable type. Made around 1455 in Mainz, it is also called "42-line Latin Bible". The first pages have columns of 40 lines and the following pages have 42 lines. This allowed an economy of paper.
The Gutenberg Bible was printed in about 180 copies. It was printed on the two writing media that were in use at the time: vellum and paper. A quarter of the copies were printed on vellum and three quarters on paper.
